Epicurean Ecstasy: More Poems About Food, Drink, Herbs & Spices by Cynthia Gallaher
The Poetry Box, 2018. 96 pages.
Reviewed by Gail Goepfert for RHINO

Gallaher’s book, Epicurean Ecstasy, is a poetic smorgasbord about food, drink, herbs & spice. From the first flip of a page, the varied tones and reaches of these poems are plattered in the table of contents with titles such as, “Brown Rice Life Coaches,” “Peppermint Hello,” “Cool Beans,” “Leaf It To Raspberry,” and “Sleeping with Valerian.”

There is lush wordplay throughout the book, and a generous portion of alliteration as in the poem, “Doesn’t a Cut Apple Look Like a Pair of Lungs”—“pippin, piñata, pomona / pomme, a poem.” Playful use of simile is seen in, “Found Champagne Poem in an Unclaimed Wisconsin Corner” that opens the book:

yes I found this poem
like we found this special bottle
marked down in the corner bin
of the dusty liquor store.

We’re invited to taste-test a bit of sci-fi in “Massachusetts Cranberries:”

…are they gathered like scarlet colonies
of miniature planet Mars vanquished to earth,
set loose from ancient-armored spaceship barrels.

Read complete review HERE.